vSphere

Replacing vSphere 6 Solution user certificates with CA signed certificates

Manish Jha

In our last post Replacing Esxi 6 SSL Certificates we learned how to replace Esxi host default certificates with CA signed certificates. In this post we will learn how to replace vSphere 6 solution user certificates with customer certificates signed by CA.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, then you can read them from below links

1: Setup CA Server for vSphere Lab

2: Set Up Automatic Certificate Enrollment

3: Request Internal Certificate from CA Server

4: Everything You Should Know About Certificate Management in vSphere 6

5: Replacing vSphere 6 SSL Certificates

6: Replacing Esxi 6 SSL Certificates

Solution Users use SSL Certificates for internal communication and endpoint registration in vSphere 6. For vCenter with embedded PSC, there are four Solution User Certificates:

  • machine
  • vpxd
  • vpxd-extension
  • vsphere-webclient

We will be replacing certificates for all the solution user in this post.

Follow below steps to replace the solution user certificates:

1: Creating Certificate Signing Request

Launch the certificate manager utility

Press 5 to select “Replace solution user certificates with custom certificates”

Provide password of SSO account

Select option 1 “Generate Certificate signing Request(s) and key(s) for solution user certificates”

sol-1

Provide path to directory where you want to store the .csr… Read the rest

vRealize Log Insight: Part-2: Installation/Configuration

Manish Jha

In last post Log Insight Introduction of this series we had a look on what is vRealize Log Insight and where did it came from. What is the advantage of using it and how it fit together with other VMware components.

In this post we are going to see basic installation/configuration of the Log Insight appliance.

vRealize Log Insight is available in the form of OVA file and you can evaluate the product by registering and downloading it from here

You can choose to deploy the downloaded ova file as it is or can convert it to ovf file using ovftool. You can use the command shown in following example to do so:

PS C:UsersAdministrator> ovftool “C:UsersAdministratorDownloadsVMware-softOVA FilesLog-Insight-3.3.1.ova” “C:Us
ersAdministratorDownloadsVMware-softOVA FilesLog-Insight-3.3.1.ovf”

Output:

=======================================================
Opening OVA source: C:UsersAdministratorDownloadsVMware-softOVA FilesLog-Insight-3.3.1.ova
Opening OVF target: C:UsersAdministratorDownloadsVMware-softOVA FilesLog-Insight-3.3.1.ovf
Writing OVF package: C:UsersAdministratorDownloadsVMware-softOVA FilesLog-Insight-3.3.1.ovf
Transfer Completed
Warning:
– ExtraConfig option ‘keyboard.typematicmindelay’ is not allowed, will skip it.… Read the rest

vRealize Log Insight: Part-1: Introduction

Manish Jha

This week I decided to test my hands on the log management tool from VMware i.e vrealize Log Insight. We have this tool in our production environment and have to jump into analysis of Alerts received from this tool. Due to lack of knowledge troubleshooting sometime becomes very difficult so I decided to deploy this in my lab and play around options.

What is vRealize Log Insight?

vRealize Log Insight is a log management tool that aggregates logs from various systems into one place.The cool aspect of Log Insight is that it supports the collection of logs either from VMware infrastructure (i.e. ESXi hosts) either from physical infrastructure (i.e. physical servers, physical switches, etc.) either from application (i.e. virtual/physical machines guest operating systems).

With the introduction of vCenter Log Insight (Later renamed as vRealize Log Insight) VMware joined the already crowded log analytics market. There are several other products in market such as Splunk, LogRhythm, Sumo Logic and Loggly which are used for data center log consolidation and analysis.… Read the rest

LUN Zoning in Openfiler: Presenting a subset of Luns to Esxi hosts

Manish Jha

I am currently working on Disaster Recovery  in my lab and as a result I have setup 2 sites: Primary and DR site. On both site I am having one vCenter and 2 Esxi hosts.

For centralized storage I am using openfiler v2.99 in my lab and I have created 2 LUN’s (100 GB each) on openfiler which are presented to Esxi hosts at my primary site.

1

If you are new to openfiler then I would recommend reading this document which I uploaded on VMTN sometime back.

I was looking for a way to create 2 more LUN’s and expose those LUN’s only to Esxi hosts that are on my DR site. I did not wanted that all my Esxi host should have visibility to all LUN’s that are created on openfiler. In short I was looking for LUN Zoning kind of things with openfiler in my home lab.

I have never done this and did not had much Idea on how to achieve that.… Read the rest

Problem Installing vCenter Server 6: The user associated with the DSN has insufficient privileges

Manish Jha

Today while working in my lab I was facing one issue when I was trying to install vCenter Server on top of Server 2012. I was experimenting to deploy vCenter Server with external SQL 2014 database. This was my first experience with working on external database for vCenter Server and I knew I am gonna face some issues.

I created vCenter Server database on my SQL Server and tested connection from vCenter Server to database (ping, telnet etc) and all went fine. I setup 64 bit DSN on my vCenter Server to connect to the SQL Server and that too went fine and I was very relaxed that most difficult part is already over.

vc-14

This is when my happiness was blown away by error as described below.

vcp-5

On database settings page when I choose next I was getting error “The user associated with the DSN has insufficient privileges“. This is shown below:

vcp-1

I was not aware of this issue so I started googling and immediately found the solution.… Read the rest

Deprecated VMFS volume(s) found on the host. Please consider upgrading volume(s) to the latest version

Manish Jha

Today while working in my Lab I was seeing following warning message on my Esxi host:
Deprecated VMFS volume(s) found on the host. Please consider upgrading volume(s) to the latest version

1

This error occurred just after I added a new shared LUN from my openfiler appliance.

If you SSH to Esxi host you will see error similar to as shown below in the /var/log/hostd.log file

… Read the rest

How To Configure NTP Server for vSphere Lab

Manish Jha

Today while working in my lab I was facing an issue where my vSphere Replication appliance was not getting registered to my vCenter server and while troubleshooting I came to find out this is happening because of time difference on my vCenter Server and Replication appliance.

We all know how critical is NTP in vSphere infrastructure as it keep time on all pieces of infrastructure in sync with each other and saves us from common problems that can occur due to time difference on servers.

So I decided to setup NTP server in my home lab. I have read a blog somewhere in past that primary domain controller (PDC) can be configured as NTP server. I have a domain controller in my lab so I followed the following steps to force my PDC to sync its time from internet and later point all my infrastructure servers (vCenter, esxi, replication appliance) to sync its time from my PDC.… Read the rest

vSphere-6:Part 10-Configuring vSphere Update Manager

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to install VUM and discussed why we need VUM and how it can simplify the update and upgrades in a large infrastructure and thus make life of a VMware admin easy.

In this post we will see how to configure various settings in VUM and how to create baselines and attach the baselines to host/cluster and then how to remediate hosts.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

9: Installing vSphere Update Manager

Configuring VUM is fairly easy task and there are not much settings involved in it.… Read the rest

vSphere-6:Part 9-Installing vSphere Update Manager

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to add Esxi hosts to domain and how to configure Esxi host to reach iSCSI storage.

In this post we will learn how to install and configure vSphere Update Manager.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

Why you need VUM?

You can ask this question to yourself that do you really need VUM in your environment especially while working in Lab environment. I would say yes. May be you are not looking for any upgrade related tasks in your lab but it is always a good idea to have hands on how VUM operates.… Read the rest

vSphere-6:Part 8-Configuring Esxi Hosts Settings

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to create and configure  dvswitch and portgroups on dvswitch and how to migrate networking from Standard switch to dvSwitch.

In this post we will see how to configure basic esxi host settings.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

Let’s get started with some basic configuration tasks on the Esxi host.

Adding Esxi hosts to Domain

It’s always a good idea to add Esxi hosts to your corporate domain. Adding Esxi hosts to domain allow you to push specific configurations and security settings from your Domain Controller. Also it can help you track which user has done what activity on esxi hosts (in case Esxi host is disconnected from vCenter and user needs to connect to host directly)

Connect to vCenter server Web-Client and select the Esxi host.  … Read the rest